The room was illuminated a devilish red, dark shadows creeping up the walls as he approached. I could feel him edging closer, the stench of alcohol seeping from his pores. Someone screamed — was it my sister? Then suddenly I was the one leering over him, my hands clasped around my chosen weapon, ready to put an end to his evil.
But, it isn’t him.
It’s Teigan. Her innocent face looks at me in shock, but it’s too late. Blood starts to gush from her, and the light leaves her eyes …
I bolt upright in bed, my body drenched with sweat. The PTSD stories from the Internet flooded back into my brain, and the icy numbness trickled through me. What was my subconscious hiding?
If — God help me — I’d harmed Teigan that morning, then how did her phone end up in Chapelfield Gardens? My head dropped into my hands as I tried to steady my breath — inhaling for five seconds, then out for eight — before giving up and getting out of bed.
There was only one way to resolve this.
I marched downstairs, oblivious to the fact it was three in the morning, and Steph was asleep on the sofa downstairs. I unlocked the backdoor and headed for the shed in the corner. The cold winds sent a chill through me as I scrambled with the key in the rusty old lock. I never went in the shed, hence the overgrown state of the garden. There were random lumps and mounds everywhere, with weeds overtaking and bushes overhanging dark corners. An ideal place to hide a body.
Like sticky tentacles, cobwebs clung to my body as I reached for the shovel in the corner. I backed out of the shed and went to the biggest mound in the garden.
My heartrate tripled as I tore into the earth, terrified at what I might uncover. The mother thought her son had been abducted. Crunch. I tossed the dirt to the side. But she’d placed his body in the recycling bin herself. Crunch. Another shovelful. She had no memory of the event. Every part of me was shaking, torn between my desperate need to uncover the truth and the terror of knowing what it might be.
Out of nowhere, a bright light beamed right in my face. I dropped the shovel and instinctively brought my arm up to shield my eyes.
“Suze? What the hell are you doing?”
I sat cross-legged on the sofa, my head hanging low with my dressing gown tucked around me. Steph had placed a cup of tea on the coffee table in front of me, but I hadn’t touched it. I just stared at my hands, wondering what they had done.
“Suze,” Steph spoke carefully, as if dealing with someone on the brink about to jump. “Why on earth would you think Teigan was in the garden?”
I continued to stare at my own hands, unable to speak.
“Suze?” She edged closer. “Talk to me.”
I broke my stare and gazed at my sister’s face. She’d done everything she could to help. I needed to let her in. I took a deep breath before speaking, the words coming out as a whisper. “Because I don’t remember what happened that day. I can’t remember those last moments with Teigan.”
“But that’s probably normal, Suze. You’re going through a traumatic time, and at that point you wouldn’t have had any idea it was going to be such a crucial moment. She probably left for school as normal, and you were on autopilot. Just because you don’t remember her walking out of the door doesn’t mean you … it doesn’t mean anything happened.”
I shook my head. “Something did happen.” I swallowed the shame as best I could. “We argued. She was really upset. Kept saying I put the kids at work before her, that I always let her down. I couldn’t bear to hear it anymore, with what had happened with Emma. Next thing I remember, I was late to work. There’s a period of time I can’t account for, at all. The doctor said I disassociated. Who knows what happened?”
A brief look of shock flashed across Steph’s face before she regained herself. “Seriously, Suze, you’ve had the police ransacking your house and everything. No offence, but you’re not some criminal mastermind. If you had done something, they’d know by now. They’d have found some evidence.”
She was trying to reassure me, trying to convince me that I was just too kind to be so good at being bad. The problem was that I knew better. I knew that I had it in me to get away with murder. I knew it, because I’d done it before.